Essential Question: How can I express the last four years of my life through poetry?

I’ve learned that it’s not a chronology. I think I went into this project expecting to be able to sit back in my chair, assume a pensive look, and have all my memories form a neat little row in my mind. There is, in fact, very little retelling of memories in this collection I have amassed. Some poems are about people, some about larger periods in time, and some are just about me. But increasingly fewer of them are about specific moments that I can easily return to in my mind. Additionally, the timeline is uneven. Some parts of my life have three or four poems dedicated to them, whereas others are missing. It’s strange to see what my subconscious has decided most important to my life. This collection is as much a learning experience as a body of work. 

I do wonder about the unity of this project. I had always intended to work without an outline of the book, mainly because I wasn’t interested in limiting myself to a list of poems. In doing so, however, I seemed to have sacrificed the clarity of an outline. I sometimes worry that I am writing about the same thing over and over again. Looking at the poems, I think there is enough variety in style to compensate. I hope so, at least.